


A Soft Place to Land

by emberanne



Series: In Spite of the Way That It Is [3]
Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Gen, Jeong Yunho-centric, Other idols as side characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:54:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26353000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emberanne/pseuds/emberanne
Summary: In the world of powers and heroes, where Yunho is a speedster and a high-tier and duty-bound to become the best hero he can be, there is no room for hopes and dreams. Wanting something, trying to have something, only to realize he could never truly have it, was the worst pain imaginable. Losing who he loved, what he loved, felt like dying. He never wants to feel like that again.It's easier, he thinks, to never get his hopes up. It's easier to never tempt himself or dream about a life that isn't the one in front of him. It's easier to take what's given to him, accept what it means to only ever be happy enough, and banish the notion of satisfaction. He is a high-tier. It is his duty to become a hero. There is no room for hopes and dreams.There is no room until Mingi comes in and slowly, gradually, reminds Yunho of what it means to love something so much he would risk everything to keep it in his life.-or, the story of yunho's life as a high-tier. of having hopes and dreams, of losing them, of learning to have them again.
Relationships: Jeong Yunho & Jung Hoseok | J-Hope, Jeong Yunho & Song Mingi
Series: In Spite of the Way That It Is [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1927066
Comments: 17
Kudos: 32





	A Soft Place to Land

**Author's Note:**

> **cw//** implied death; mild depictions of fighting and violence, physical injuries, and blood; depressed/hopeless mindset (sorry yunho bb)
> 
> title from [soft place to land](https://youtu.be/sX-rFdZtdY4) by sara bareilles 
> 
> it's not necessary to read [the world we dream about](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25237525/chapters/61176847) before you read this, but like, it definitely helps? objectively, do whatever you want.

_"A dancer dies two times--once when they stop dancing, and this first death is the more painful."  
-a tweet buried somewhere in my bookmarks_

Yunho is seven years old when he discovers hip hop for the first time. He doesn't discover it in his father's favorite music store or a poster on the wall, he doesn't discover it through works of graffiti or the tv programs his mother plays as white noise. Yunho discovers hip hop through street dancing. 

(He's seen buskers before, there are buskers all over the city he calls home. He's watched them do incredible flips over long rows of bent over people and show off flashy powers in a choreographed routine. He likes to watch buskers, he thinks they're pretty cool, and he knows the acts by heart. 

But nothing, absolutely nothing, could prepare him for street dancing.)

It's an accident, really. Most people don't let their seven-year-old wander off, but something was wrong with his mom and his dad was angry at a stranger for saying something beyond his understanding, so his parents didn't notice when Yunho wandered off. He doesn't mean to go far, really, he just wants to throw his candy wrapper away at the trash can at the opening of the alley. Just a short trip down the length of the grocery store they'd just come out of. Nothing too far. 

He doesn't mean to go far, but he hears something thrumming and he just can't help himself. He's seven and he's curious, sue him. 

He follows the thrumming, feet padding along the pavement as he makes his way down the wide alley and turns into a new one, a cleaner one. One that contains the back doors to the stores that line the street. One with lots of people and a whole lot more of that thrumming he now can identify as music. He's never heard music like this before, it's not that bad, but it's the people that draw his attention. 

The people are laughing, calling out, in a large circle that Yunho curiously worms his way into. They don't seem to notice him, too caught up in cheering for whatever's in the middle of the circle. Finally, when Yunho has resorted to crouching and peering between legs bearing strangely baggy pants, he sees what all the fuss is about. 

There's a girl in the middle, one much older than him (she looks around sixteen, so old!) and she's dancing. At least, Yunho think's she's dancing. He's never seen anyone move like that before, it's a far cry from the boring dances he sees in movies or the big choreographed numbers of musicals. She seems to move as fluidly as water, striking out when she feels like it, letting the music take over her body. 

"Whoa," Yunho says when she supports herself with one arm and swings her legs around her body. 

He's enraptured. He's fascinated. This is the most amazing thing he's ever seen. It feels like he's breathing for the first time. 

The people surge slightly when she moves out of Yunho's field of vision, probably trying to get into the middle of the circle. 

"Noona! You did so well!" A voice cheers from the front. 

Yunho pouts a little. He wants to be closer, to see the super cool weird dance-y stuff more clearly. He shifts, adjusts his feet, huddling closer to the ground so he can watch whoever comes next. He wants to see more. 

This is when someone trips over him. 

The person stumbles forward with a surprised yelp and Yunho cries out a little as he tumbles back, miraculously uncrushed. 

"What the hell," the person swears. Yunho looks up and there she is, the girl from the middle of the circle, steadying herself on the shoulder of a boy who looks only a few years older than Yunho himself. Her eyes soften when she sees Yunho, curled on his back with his hands defensively in front of him, and she smiles kindly.

"Hey kiddo, are you okay?" she asks, reaching down and helping Yunho to his feet. Her hand hovers over his shoulder. "What are you doing in a place like this?" 

Yunho gapes at her, unsure of how to respond before his brain kicks in and he bows politely to her. "I'm sorry I tripped you. Thank you for helping me up." 

"It's okay, it's not your fault," she says. Yunho is immediately jostled by the crowd a second later. Her hand clamps down on his shoulder and steadies him into place. She smiles, offering Yunho her hand. "How about we get out of these people and you tell me what you're doing here?" 

Nodding, Yunho accepts her hand. The other boy takes the lead, weaving through the crowd expertly, as the girl gently pulls Yunho along. She's nice, really nice, squeezing Yunho's hand reassuringly as they make their way through the crowd. Also, she's pretty. 

"Now," she says when she's pulled them out of the crowd and into the first alley, the one parallel to the grocery store. She crouches down so she's eye to eye with Yunho. "What's your name?" 

"Jeong Yunho," he answers, bowing his head as his mother always tells him to. 

"Alright, Yunho-ssi, what's a good kid like you doing around here?" 

"I heard the thrumming," Yunho says, excitement and curiosity spilling back into him. "And I just decided to follow it. What's that thing you were doing? How do you hold yourself up with only your arms? What's it called, where'd you learn to do that? Can I learn to do that?" 

"Whoa, whoa, one thing at a time," she laughs. "When you say you decided to follow it, where'd you follow it from?" 

"Over there," Yunho points to the trash can at the end of the alley. "I was throwing my candy wrapper away." 

"That's very responsible of you, Yunho-ssi," she says. "Are your parents waiting for you?" 

"Oh," Yunho thinks of his mother and the thing that's wrong with her, a thing he can't quite grasp yet. And his father is mad at a stranger. "I don't know. Something's wrong with eomma and someone made appa upset, appa was arguing with that person." 

The girl frowns at that. She eases herself back up, rocking on her heels slightly. 

"Alright, Yunho-ssi," she says. "Why don't the three of us go down to the trash can? You two can wait there and I'll find your eomeoni." 

Yunho mostly wants to go back and watch the people, listen to the thrumming, but he nods his head anyways. Besides, this girl is nice and he doesn't want his parents to worry. She makes him hold hands with the other boy, patting their heads and telling them to stay while she heads towards the grocery store. 

"Hi!" the older boy says cheerfully. He has a happy smile. It reminds Yunho of sunshine. "I'm Jung Hoseok and I'm 12 years old. How old are you, Yunho-ssi?"

"Seven," Yunho says. He smiles back at Hoseok, who squeezes his hand just like the girl did. "Nice to meet you, Hoseok-ssi." 

"You're pretty tall for seven," Hoseok exclaims, eyes wide. "You haven't even had a growth spurt yet." 

"What's a growth spurt?" Yunho's never heard of this before. 

"You grow a whole lot in a small amount of time," says Hoseok, face pinched together as if he's not one hundred percent sure he's talking about the right thing. "Noona says I'll get one soon and then I'll get another one when I'm her age, I can't wait to be taller." 

"Will I get one?" 

"Definitely," Hoseok nods. "You have to wait until you're my age, though." 

"That's so far away," Yunho whines. Hoseok laughs and he laughs with his whole body, leaning over and snorting. It's so contagious that Yunho starts laughing too, the pair dissolving into a pile of giggles leaning into their linked hands. 

"Hey Hoseok-ssi," Yunho says when the laughter has subsided. "Can you tell me what the thrumming is?" 

"The thrumming?" Hoseok cocks his head to the side for a second before understanding washes over his face. "Oh! The music! That's hip hop, it's pretty great, right?" 

"Hip hop," Yunho repeats, testing the word on his tongue. It's foreign and familiar at the same time. "I think I like it, a lot." 

"Hip hop is super cool," agrees Hoseok. "And that thing noona was doing? That's called street dancing." 

"Street dancing?" Yunho furrows his eyebrows. Is it because they dance on the streets? But technically they were in an alley, shouldn't it be alley dancing?

"Street dancing. It can be done to all types of music, but noona's group mostly does hip hop. You want to know the coolest part," Hoseok grins and beckons Yunho closer, like they're best friends sharing a secret at the playground. Hoseok pokes Yunho's cheek with his free hand. "I do it too." 

"No way!" Yunho exclaims, leaning away as a laughing Hoseok shushes him. "You can do that too?" 

"Not as well as noona, but I learn fast. She says I'll be one of the best," Hoseok boasts with a wide smile. "I practice all the time. I want to dance just like noona." 

"I wish I had a noona I could learn to dance like," pouts Yunho. "It looks so cool!" 

"It's the coolest," agrees Hoseok. "Hey, maybe you can learn too and-"

"Yunho-ya!"

Yunho turns, seeing his mother jogging towards him with the girl close behind. Yunho grins widely, "Eomma!"

It's only when she crushes Yunho in a hug does he let go of Hoseok's hand, letting his mother kneel down and cradle his face, checking him over instantly. "You made me so worried. Are you okay?" 

"I'm okay," Yunho says happily. "Eomma, I saw the coolest thing!" 

"I'm sure you did," his mother smiles. "Thank you so much, Dawon-ssi, for finding him." 

"Of course," the girl, Dawon, smiles. She puts a hand on Hoseok's shoulder. "It was nice to meet you, Yunho-ssi." 

"It was nice to meet you too, Dawon-ssi," Yunho says, smiling at her. "Thank you for helping me." 

"It was my pleasure," she laughs. "Take care of yourself, okay?" 

"Okay," Yunho chirps and he waves at Hoseok enthusiastically as Dawon takes them back down the alley again. 

His mother takes him by the hand, leading them back to the grocery store entrance where his father waits for them. All the way home, he talks his parents' ears off about hip hop and street dancing, and really, this is the coolest thing ever. So his dad signs him up for dance lessons (because when your son has superspeed you get used to signing him up for activities in the hopes it will drain some of his energy) and after his first class, Yunho knows that he wants to dance for the rest of his life. 

* * *

When he turns eight and starts elementary school, two important things happen. 

First, he gets his rank. The census workers come in with their bored expressions, tiredly evaluating every kid that comes before him in the alphabet until he gets to the front and runs so fast their jaws drop. He comes home officially a high-tier and his mother smiles at him with tears in her eyes. 

Second, he meets Kim Hongjoong. Hongjoong is one year older than him, a mid-tier. But Hongjoong has a teleport power that can almost keep up with Yunho's speed and that's pretty cool, no one's ever been able to keep up with him before, so he likes Hongjoong a lot. Best of all, Hongjoong likes hip hop too, and Yunho excitedly talks to Hongjoong about everything he loves about hip hop and dancing. 

They start having sleepovers not long after, although they mostly do them at Hongjoong's and Yunho's father always drops him off or picks him up, even if it means leaving work to do so. Yunho doesn't think much of it, his mother doesn't like going out much. He focuses on spending time listening to dozens on dozens of hip hop tracks with Hongjoong, words too fast and strange for them to understand, Hongjoong tripping over his tongue and Yunho dancing along in all his uncoordinated half a year of dance lessons wonderfulness. It's great. 

"I want to be a street dancer someday," Yunho whispers one night, sleeping bags entangled and foreheads pressed together as they fight to keep down their giggles. "I'll be the best street dancer there is." 

"But you're a high-tier," Hongjoong frowns. "You're going to be a hero." 

The thought upsets Yunho. "No, I'm not. I'm going to be a street dancer." 

"Okay," Hongjoong says, headbutting Yunho lightly. "I'll come to all your performances." 

"Thanks, hyung," Yunho grins. 

He continues to dance without a single upsetting thought in his head. 

* * *

Turning ten, Yunho dances more than he does anything else. He's still pretty focused on hip hop, he still wants to be a street dancer, but he finally surrenders to his favorite dance instructor and signs up for a slot of contemporary lessons. He's still taking hip hop, he'd rather die than not dance hip hop, but he likes dancing more than he likes just hip hop so he figures he should give it a shot. 

He wonders about Hoseok and Dawon, sometimes. He wonders how they are. He wonders if Dawon's still street dancing, how good Hoseok's become at it. He wonders how tall Hoseok is after his growth spurt. 

It's almost a miracle when he bumps into Hoseok again. (Quite literally because Hoseok appears out of the same alley out of the blue, head turned back to the people he came with and laughing loudly, and Yunho has to use his power to skirt to the side to not crash into Hoseok.)

Naturally, Hoseok is dancing. 

He's taller than before, he's definitely got at least ten centimeters on Yunho. His hair is longer, more disheveled. But his smile is the same, it feels like sunshine. 

And his dancing? Oh man, Yunho dreams of being able to dance that well. It's clearly done as a joke, to make the people leaving the alley laugh at his ridiculousness, but Hoseok's isolations are still on a whole other level. Hoseok rides a beat no one can hear. Yunho is star struck. 

"Seonbaenim," Yunho says before he can stop himself. Momentarily, he's struck by the paralyzing fear that Hoseok, super cool and kind of intimidating Hoseok, doesn't remember the tiny seven-year-old he helped a few years ago. 

Hoseok doesn't seem to hear him, laughing at something his friends say, but one taps Hoseok on the shoulder and points to Yunho, who stands frozen in place. 

Hoseok turns, his eyes going wide when he sees Yunho standing there. "Yunho?" 

"Hi," Yunho says, waving a little nervously. 

"Holy shit, Jeong Yunho-ssi," Hoseok laughs openly, widely, with his whole body just like Yunho remembers. He waves his friends off, smiling at Yunho with happy eyes. "It's been such a long time! What, three years?" 

"I think so," Yunho says. Talking to Hoseok is strangely familiar after all this time. "I just, I saw you dancing just now and I wanted to say hi." 

"I'm glad you did," Hoseok grins. "Which way are you headed? I'll walk with you." 

So Hoseok walks Yunho home, his own being a few bus stops past Yunho's, and they talk. Yunho's still a little nervous, he feels like such a kid next to Hoseok, but he's happy too. He's talking to one of the people who got him into hip hop, got him into dance, and who knows where he would be without it. He tells Hoseok about his dance lessons, about wanting to be a street dancer like Hosoek someday. The walk takes twice as long as usual because they keep stopping so Hoseok can demonstrate different moves that Yunho tries to copy, Hoseok correcting him and explaining everything in a beat. It's the most fun Yunho's ever had. 

At one point, Hoseok and Yunho are attempting some complicated footwork when Yunho's power kicks in and he ends up falling over, his feet tangled together. 

"Ah, I hate it when that happens," Yunho frowns. 

Hoseok looks a little surprised. "Yunho-ya, what rank are you?" 

"Rank? I'm a high-tier," Yunho says as he pulls himself to his feet. "I have super speed." 

He doesn't notice the look on Hoseok's face as he tries to tackle the footwork-again, this time without his power kicking in, and manages to succeed. 

"Yeah!" Yunho cheers, jumping up and down. He grins at Hoseok eagerly. "Did you see that, seonbae?" 

"Yeah," says Hoseok, face masked in an easy smile. "That was great, Yunho-ya." 

They don't stop anymore on the walk, they just keep talking about dancing, until they're in front of Yunho's house. 

"Yunho-ya," Hoseok calls out before Yunho goes in. Yunho turns around and Hoseok smiles again. "We dance in that alley behind the stores every day after four, though not everyone comes every day. You don't have to dance if you're not ready yet, but you're welcome to join us and watch." 

"That sounds awesome," Yunho grins. He shows up on Tuesday and Friday, the days he doesn't have dance lessons, every single week. 

* * *

His parents, for the record, do not like the idea of him hanging out in an alley twice a week when he should just be coming home. Alleys are dangerous, they think, what if he gets hurt?

But Hoseok comes and introduces himself to Yunho's parents, promising he'll look after Yunho if Yunho wants to come. He says something to them when Yunho is sent to get a glass of water from the kitchen, something Yunho can't hear, but it seems to convince his parents that going to the alley is okay as long as he stays with Hoseok the entire time. 

Yunho doesn't mind. Hoseok is the coolest. 

* * *

Yunho goes to the alley every Tuesday and Friday for almost a year, he loves dancing more than he loves life. When he's not in the alley, he's at the studio he takes dance lessons at and sometimes, Hoseok will show up and watch. Occasionally, if the teacher's in a good mood, Hoseok gets to dance by Yunho's side even though he's far too advanced for the moves Yunho's learning. On those days, Hoseok walks Yunho back home, waves hi to Yunho's family and every once in a blue moon, will join them for dinner. It's nice, having Hoseok in his life. He imagines this is what it feels like to have a big brother. 

(He calls Hoseok seonbae because, technically, Hoseok is his seonbae when it comes to street dancing. He kind of wants to call Hoseok hyung, but he doesn't want to make Hoseok uncomfortable. So seonbae works just fine.)

The day after the school year finishes, Hoseok buys Yunho tteokbokki after they're done in the alley. Yunho had never seen Hoseok dance so hard. His body had rolled, twisted, contorted, hit, flowed so beautifully, so naturally. And as always, Hoseok was smiling, smiling like he was in the middle in the best moment of his life. 

"I wish you would've danced today," Hoseok says suddenly. "I'd like to see your freestyle." 

"I'll do it soon," Yunho promises. He's nervous when it comes to freestyling, he can't ride the beat like Hoseok can, but he knows Hoseok will cheer him on when he finally tries. "When I'm eleven. I told myself I'd start then, no more being scared. Just wait for next month, okay?" 

Yunho looks up from his tteokbokki, expecting Hoseok to be smiling back at him. He is, of course, Hoseok is always smiling. But his smile is sad, there's no sunshine in it. 

"Seonbae?" 

"Listen, Yunho-ya," Hoseok pauses. Yunho watches as Hoseok searches for the words. "I meant to tell you this before, I'm sorry I didn't." 

"Tell me what?" asks Yunho. Why is Hoseok sad? Hoseok is never sad. 

"I'm starting high school next school year," he explains. Hoseok is looking down at his hands. Hoseok never looks down. "I'm going to the Academy." 

"You're going to the Academy?" Yunho's eyes nearly pop out of his head. "That's incredible! You never told me you were a high-tier, seonbae. What's your power?" 

"What? Oh," Hoseok laughs a little. "I can control the weather." 

He beckons Yunho closer as he did all those years ago, when they first met, and points up to the sky. Yunho tilts his head up, Hoseok copying the movement and closing his eyes, and suddenly the clouds are parting and the sun is shining down on them, a spotlight on them in the middle of an otherwise grey street. Yunho laughs in delight. 

"That's so cool, seonbae," Yunho says, turning his head back to Hoseok and smiling. The Academy is for the strongest, Hoseok is so cool! 

But wait. 

"The Academy's, like, three hundred kilometers away," realization dawns on Yunho. "You're moving away." 

"I am," Hoseok says. That's not too bad, Yunho is sad that Hoseok won't' be around to take him to the alley anymore, but it's not the end of the world. Maybe Hoseok will come back and dance with him when he has long breaks from school. 

Hoseok takes a deep breath and says, "And I'm going to stop dancing, too." 

The sun disappears from the sky and Yunho's world stops. 

* * *

Hoseok explains to Yunho that he can't dance anymore. He has to go to high school now and become a hero. It's his duty as a high-tier to become a hero, dancing has no place in his life. 

Dancing was incredible, Hoseok will admit. Dancing was the best thing in the world. He loved it while he could. 

But it's time to grow up now. 

* * *

When Yunho is twelve, two things happen. 

First, he stops dancing. It happens gradually, almost unintentionally. He just stops going to the alley, he takes fewer lessons. He tells himself he'll be like Hoseok, be like Dawon, and enjoy it while he can. And then he stops all at once when-

Second, his mother leaves his life. 

And he's old enough to know what she was always so upset about, why she didn't like to leave the house. He's old enough to know the nature of the whispers that used to follow them, the meaning behind the glances his teachers give him. He's old enough to know a lot. 

He watches his father fall apart, sob when he thinks Yunho and his little brother can't hear. Cursing at something much bigger than them, wishing that things could have been different. He lets his father cry, holds his brother's hand as they sneak into their father's room and crawl into bed with him, and feels the pain crush what remains of his family. 

It feels like dying. 

He never wants to feel like this again. He doesn't want anyone he loves to feel like this.

His mother leaves his life. He stops dancing. He stops breathing. He waits to grow up. 

It hurts less this way. It hurts less if he stops now. What's the point of continuing to hurt himself with dreams of dancing when everything good, everyone good, is torn away eventually?

It feels like dying. 

He never wants to feel like that again.

* * *

Middle school is different and the same. It's the same type of lessons, the same basic structure. Classes organized according to tier, not much interaction between them. 

The difference is that Yunho and the other high-tiers are being groomed for high school. Being groomed to begin hero training. They push him farther in PE, have him run a thousand laps and when he finishes, gasping for air, they ask him how they can help him run faster. 

He's going places, apparently. He's the fastest speedster their city has ever seen. If anyone in his school can make it into the Academy, it's him. 

"My duty as a high tier is to become a strong hero," that's what Hoseok had said. 

At the time, it broke his heart. 

Now, he realizes it's probably something Dawon told Hoseok when she went on to high school. Something that broke Hoseok's heart then, but something he grew to understand and passed on to Yunho. Yunho tells himself he understands too. 

Now, it's the mantra that Yunho chants to himself every time he feels tired and wants to stop. It's his duty to be a hero. His speed is a gift, an incredible, extraordinary gift, and he has the power to help others and fight villains. If he doesn't his power is wasted. 

He runs a thousand laps a thousand times. He learns how to corner and switch directions without falling over himself. He learns how to run across walls. 

He runs and runs and tries not to look back on dancing. 

* * *

The trick to his speed is momentum. As long as Yunho has control of his momentum, he can run at the speed of sound. But the minute he loses it, the minute he falters, he loses control and he crashes. 

"You used to dance, didn't you?" one of the instructors says when Yunho's momentum gets away from him when trying to run across a wall and he crashes to the floor in a pile of messy limbs and bruised joints. "Dancing is a good way to master momentum and control over your body, maybe you should take it up again." 

"No," Yunho says, a rare show of disobedience. "Not dance. Anything but dance." 

They put him into karate instead. Yunho ignores any similarities that might exist between dancing and fighting. 

* * *

At least, at the end of it all, Yunho has Hongjoong. Hongjoong knows about his mom, knows about Hoseok, knows about everything. Hongjoong is in a different tier, a different year, is so different from Yunho in every way. 

Yunho thinks he wouldn't survive without Hongjoong. 

They don't talk about hip hop anymore. Yunho stopped listening to hip hop when he stopped dancing. It's okay, they don't need to talk about hip hop anymore. Their friendship is deep, made unconditional by years of spending time together. They don't need to hang out every lunch period, they don't need to walk out of school together, they don't need to fill every empty silence. 

They don't need to do anything to stay by each other's sides. 

"Hey, Yunho-ya," Hongjoong says. Hongjoong is fifteen and Yunho is fourteen. The school year will start soon. "Do you ever wish you could be in a different tier?"

Yunho doesn't say anything. To ask this of a high tier, ask this of someone who is bound to become a hero and stand in the public eye, is dangerous. Hongjoong would have been beaten up if he asked anyone other than Yunho. 

He misses his mom. He misses dancing. He can't breathe. 

A tear falls down his cheek. 

"Yeah," breathes Hongjoong. "Me too." 

They don't talk about it after that. After that, they dive into school. Yunho learns how to implement his speed into his fighting techniques. He learns how to add power behind his punches, how to shift and make his kicks count. 

(He doesn't like fighting. He can't escape the comparisons to dancing. Fighting is dancing with no emotion, no freedom. Fighting is dancing in the same stance, being grounded when every bone in his body is screaming to flow. He wonders if Hoseok hated learning to fight as much as he does.)

It's better on the days that Hongjoong joins him. It's almost fun on those days. Despite their glaring height difference, despite their difference in tier, it's an even fight when they have their powers turned on. 

If anything, Hongjoong has the advantage when they spar with powers. Once he figures out he can use his power to put him exactly where he needs to be to land a hit, once he starts taking gymnastics and tuning his body into something that makes his power stronger, Hongjoong is nearly impossible for Yunho to defeat. 

Sometimes, Yunho thinks Hongjoong should have been a high-tier too. It's the only way he can justify keeping Hongjoong in his life. 

* * *

Yunho is an incredibly friendly person, despite everything he holds inside. He prides himself on how easy he is to talk to, how many of his peers feel comfortable coming up to him. And he does like talking to people, he likes being their friend. 

He likes his peers. He likes his classmates. 

He likes them. 

He wonders if they ever feel the way he does. 

He never asks. 

* * *

He doesn't get into the Academy. Not fast enough, maybe, not powerful enough. The Academy requests he go to the neighboring first school instead. They want him to be a hero, they just don't think he'll be one of the best. 

* * *

He meets Jung Wooyoung. He likes Wooyoung, Wooyoung is loud and energetic and funny. Wooyoung is a healer, an Academy-almost just like Yunho, with a big heart. 

He misses Hongjoong. Still thinks about the city his family left behind so he could come here. But it's nice to be somewhere different, where no one knows his sob story. No one knows about his mom, about his dancing, about anything. He's free to be whoever he wants to be. 

Wooyoung introduces him to two friends he has, Academy kids, Choi San and Kang Yeosang. Their powers are extraordinary. Yunho feels a little bit less upset about not getting in. 

He sees Hoseok on the news. 

"Ah, that must be him," San says, pointing to a shot of Hoseok flying (fucking _flying_ ) through the sky, lightning arcing through his body. "The Academy's finest." 

"Who's he?" Wooyoung asks. Wooyoung is just as new to this town as Yunho is, they take turns asking questions about the heroes that pop up on the news. Thank god it's Wooyoung's turn. 

"Well, I don't know his name," San admits, scratching the back of his head. "But he's this legend. He was old for his year, had a birthday in February, and you guys all know how hero work can start the minute you turn eighteen. So they put him out after only two years." 

"Only two years?" Yunho finds himself asking, eyes glued to Hoseok's form. 

"Insane," says Yeosang. Yunho turns to see Yeosang shaking his head in disbelief. "No way could I be ready after only two years." 

"I mean, look at his power," Wooyoung says, gesturing to the clouds draping Hoseok's figure as the tempest builds around him. "That's insane. With a power like that, it's no surprise that he was ready in two years. He must be something to talk about wherever he's from." 

The words are on the tip of Yunho's tongue, threatening to spill and flood everywhere. That back home, the main thing Hoseok was known for was dancing. That he popped and locked more than he controlled the weather and its elements.

"What do they call him?" Yunho asks instead. 

Real names often aren't used, references to the power are used instead. Yunho is a speedster, Wooyoung a healer. If you're powerful enough, however, if you're unique enough, they'll give your power a name. The name your power has is important, it says so much about you.

"They call him a storm bringer," Yeosang answers. 

"Damn," whistles Wooyoung. Yunho agrees. Damn. 

It hurts to see Hoseok on the screen. It hurts to be reminded of what he gave up, what Hoseok gave up, to get where they are now. Still, with a name like that, with a reputation like that, Hoseok has done his duty as a high tier and become the best hero he could be. 

It hurts, but Yunho is proud of Hoseok and congratulates him on his success, wherever he may be.

* * *

He trains a lot. Arguably, he trains too much. But he has to train, he has to push himself, it's his job to become stronger. 

Everything's about speed. Everything's about how fast he is. Physically, mentally, instinctually, everything. He has to be faster than everyone else. 

The teachers throw him into simulation rooms, rooms the size of warehouses equipped with the latest technology. Tests to see how fast he reacts to a threat, how fast he can do search and rescue, how fast. 

He races for the dummy villain and the gravity is flipped on him, his momentum is thrown and his speed is lost, he goes flying. 

He hits a wall, feels his body shout with pain, and slides down as gravity rights itself again. He's racing the second his feet have a grip of the earth beneath him, faster, faster, faster. He slams the dummy villain into the ground face first. 

Pass. 

He trains a lot. He trains too much. He has to be faster than everyone else. 

"Again," he says to himself, panting for air. 

* * *

He's seventeen when he becomes the best in school and wakes up to a call from Hongjoong in the middle of the night. 

"What's up?" he asks sleepily. 

"You good?" Hongjoong says instead. Yunho lets out a tired hum of agreement. "Great, I'm outside your place. Let's go on a walk." 

"Yeah, okay," Yunho says, yawning. He processes what Hongjoong said. "Wait." 

Yunho jolts out of bed, worries of waking his little brother far from his mind, and stumbles to the window of his family's apartment. Sure enough, in all his tiny glory, Kim Hongjoong is waving at Yunho from the street. 

"Holy shit." 

A wide grin breaks across Yunho's face, he almost shouts with excitement. His power kicks in and he changes in a second, sprinting down to the street below. The whoosh of him stopping messes up Hongjoong's hair. 

"Holy shit," Yunho repeats, laughing incredulously. He nearly tackles Hongjoong in a hug, lifting the older well off the ground. Hongjoong laughs, kicking his feet helplessly. 

"Too tight, Yunho-ya, too tight," Hongjoong says. Yunho ignores him, burying his face into Hongjoong's neck. He's missed Hongjoong a lot. (Besides, if he were really hurting Hongjoong, Hongjoong could just teleport out of his grip.)

"I missed you," admits Yunho. 

"I missed you too." 

Yunho lets Hongjoong go, albeit reluctantly. 

"I see you're even more of a giant now," Hongjoong says, looking very personally offended. It's true, Yunho has undergone several growth spurts since he last saw Hongjoong. He's more than a little self-conscious of how he towers over most people. 

"You're still a dwarf," Yunho counters. 

"Yah, be nice to your hyung!" Hongjoong teleports, swatting the back of Yunho's head and teleporting away in a burst of inky air before Yunho can react. 

"No fair!" cries Yunho. He tears off after Hongjoong, forced to slow down so he can keep an eye on where Hongjoong will appear. It's the most bizarre game of tag, Hongjoong teleporting through the air and Yunho running up the sides of abandoned storefronts as they race each other. Yunho is stronger than before, the strongest in his class, but Hongjoong is stronger too. His body arcs through the night gracefully, his tags are clever and quick. 

And it's so, so fun. 

They go until Hongjoong grows tired (Yunho's happy to note he still has Hongjoong beat on stamina) and teleports directly onto Yunho's back, forcing Yunho to carry him. Yunho doesn't mind too much, the night is beautiful and Hongjoong is light. 

"How are you here, hyung?" he asks as he walks backs towards his family's apartment. 

"What do you mean, how am I here," Hongjoong scoffs. "I live here." 

"You what?" 

Hongjoong chuckles, tugging Yunho's ear. "I start college next week, Yunho-ya. The best universities are here, so here I am." 

"Huh," Yunho says. He's thankful that Hongjoong's here, but still a little confused. "Hyung?" 

"Yeah." 

"What's college?"

* * *

College, as it turns out, is a form of higher education for the low-tiers and mid-tiers who have completed high school. College is a place where you figure out what you want to do with your life, what you want to focus on or study, and grow into the person you want to be. 

Yunho ignores the boiling sensation in his stomach. 

Hongjoong gets college. Yunho gets a mandatory ten-year contract. This is how it's meant to be. 

* * *

Sometimes, he forgets himself. Sometimes, he catches himself dreaming. Of dancing, of Hoseok, of his mother. Of things that once were his but now are long gone. 

It hurts to wake up from those dreams. 

But it's not like dying. He doesn't have any hope in his dreams, his dreams can't kill him. As long as he doesn't get his hopes up, he'll be alright. 

He never wants to feel like that again. 

* * *

When Yunho is eighteen, two things happen. 

First, he's not handed a contract the second he turns eighteen. He's not Hoseok, he'll be asked to continue through his third year of studies with the knowledge that they could pull him to work in the field at any time. In a way, he's disappointed. He wanted to be powerful enough, to be valued enough, that they'd want him the instant his eighteenth birthday came around. He focuses on the time he gets to spend with his friends under the notion his disappointment might ebb away. 

Second, he meets Song Mingi. 

* * *

The best part of high school was the weekly dinners Yunho had with Wooyoung, Yeosang, and San. Weekly Wednesday Dinner was a tradition that could never be broken, something they had started early in their first year of high school and continued to do. It was the one time a week where Yunho consistently felt okay, felt like what he had wasn't something he was going to lose. Weekly dinners were sacred. 

It wasn't uncommon for any of them to bring a friend along to their weekly dinners. Wooyoung brought Yeonjun about once a month and San brought Yoojung every now and then. Yunho was partial to bringing Woojin along when they went for barbecue. But Yeosang never brought anyone. 

So when Yeosang says he's bringing not one, but two people, including the secret friend he disappears to meet whenever he can, Yunho's curious. 

It seems they all are, because as he, Wooyoung, and San (shifted into Yeosang) sit around their table in a secluded corner of Wooyoung's favorite sushi restaurant, they're uncharacteristically quiet. 

"Do you know who he's bringing?" Wooyoung (Yeosang's best friend) asks San (the person Yeosang spends the most time with), because Yeosang's secret friend has always been a mystery even to them. Yunho turns towards them, tuning into the conversation. 

"Technically," San says, glancing towards the door out of the corner of his eye. "One of them is an Academy kid, a second year. Hell, he's one of the most powerful kids in the Academy. The other I don't know much about, though I've met him." 

"You met him?" hisses Wooyoung. "You met Sang-ah's mystery friend and you didn't think to tell us?" 

"You are so not subtle," San says, wiping Wooyoung's spit off his cheek. "Yeah, I've met him. Twice, technically. I think he's our age? He's good at fixing things. He came to the Academy last week." 

Yunho knows something went down at the Academy last week, something Yeosang and San refuse to talk about, but he's heard the gossip. He wonders if Yeosang suddenly bringing two people to dinner has anything to do with it. 

"They're here," San says suddenly and Yunho nearly knocks a glass of water over trying to look casual. He manages it, somehow, because the two newcomers don't look too alarmed as they slide up. San smiles at them before melting back into himself. "Hey guys. Sorry about that, Yeosang's the one who reserved the table and he's running a bit late, so he asked me to hold it." 

"Terrifying," one says. 

"Cool!" the other says. "I've never seen you use your power up close, San-ssi!" 

The other, clearly the Academy second year, starts asking San questions in rapid-fire. Yunho turns his eyes to the first. He's tall, as tall as Yunho probably, with long limbs that he seems to have complete control over as he neatly folds himself into the seat next to Yunho. 

He'd make a good dancer, Yunho thinks to himself. He banishes the dream from his head. 

"Thank you for letting us join," he says, politely bowing his head. 

"Of course," Wooyoung smiles. "It's nice to meet you! I'm Jung Wooyoung, healer." 

"I'm Jeong Yunho, speedster," Yunho smiles as well. The other gives a short smile in return, seeming more than a little out of his comfort zone. Yunho feels a little bad for him. 

"Nice to meet you, Wooyoung-ssi, Yunho-ssi," he bows his head again. "I'm Song Mingi." 

No power stated, that's different. 

"Nice to meet you, Mingi-ssi," Yunho says. Another awkward smile graces Mingi's face. 

"So tell us," Wooyoung leans forward, grinning early. "How'd you meet Yeosang-ah? He's always so secretive about it." 

"Yeosang-ah?" Mingi says, blinking in surprise. "Oh, hmm, Sang and I met two years ago, I think? Two and a bit. It was his birthday, I gave him a char siu bao. The rest is history." 

Yunho resists the urge to ask if that's it. It's so, so normal. Ordinary. Uneventful. It's not what he would expect from the person that Yeosang hides from everyone else. 

"Hyung," the Academy second year says, tugging on Mingi's sleeve. Yunho feels his heart melt a little at the action. "Hyung. Do you have an apple?" 

"No, Jongho-ya, I do not have an apple," Mingi says, looking mildly exasperated. Yunho wonders if this is a frequently asked question. "Are you pulling out party tricks already?" 

"Don't give it away," the second year, Jongho, scowls. "It's less impressive that way." 

"It's an apple and you have super strength," counters Mingi. "It's not that impressive." 

"You say that, but you still can't do it." 

"That's irrelevant," Mingi says, a soft smile on his face as Jongho snickers at him. "Yah, Jongho-ya, you're supposed to be nice to me." 

" _Supposed to_ is the key phrase there," says Yeosang, announcing his arrival. He smiles at them apologetically. "Sorry I'm late." 

"Did the Academy keep you?" asks San, frown tugging on his face. 

"When doesn't the Academy keep me," scoffs Yeosang, taking his seat at the end of the table between Wooyoung and Yunho. "It's fine, San-ah." 

The look on San's face says it's anything but fine, but they know better than to push Yeosang about the training rooms the Academy throws him in. Yeosang has always been the most powerful of them, the one with the power that's never been seen, the one with the most potential. If Yunho trains too much, Yeosang has been trained half to death. 

"By the way," says Yeosang, directing his words to Mingi with a nod. "I've got something for you." 

Mingi grins slightly, "Give it to me." 

Yunho watches, barely keeping his jaw from dropping, as the two reach forward and bump their fists together. Mingi blinks twice, no other sign of discomfort on his face, then laughs. 

"No way!" Mingi says. 

"Yes way," Yeosang argues with a smile. "Honest to god, Mingi-ya, it was a disaster." 

Mingi and Yeosang are talking, laughing, caught up in their own world for a second. Yunho's eyes flick to Wooyoung and San, who are similarly hiding their shock. Because Yeosang will never touch people willingly, rarely touches his friends, and always tries so, so hard to make sure he won't transmit data to them. 

And in comes Mingi, tall and kind of awkward Mingi, who Yeosang will willingly fist bump and use his power on. 

"Yunho-ya, frustratingly enough, is never late," says Yeosang, pulling Yunho from his head. Automatically, he grins. 

"For anything?" Mingi asks Yunho. 

"Nope," Yunho grins, popping the p. "My attendance record is perfect. I've never been late and I never will be." 

"It's hard to be late when you're a speedster," Wooyoung says, attempting to kick Yunho under the table. 

"What can I say," shrugs Yunho, grinning at Mingi conspiratorially. "It's hard to be late when you can run at the speed of sound." 

Mingi laughs at that, a true, proper laugh, an unconstrained laugh that's slightly wheezy and full of honesty. It reminds Yunho of Hoseok, just a little bit. 

He decides he likes Mingi. Yeosang trusts Mingi in such a casual, open way that it's easy to miss unless one knows Yeosang as well as they do. 

And if Yeosang trusts Mingi, Mingi must be a good guy.

* * *

"I'm not powerful. I'm a low-tier, actually. I went to trade school." 

Really, it was going great up until that point. Yunho liked Mingi a lot, like _a lot_ a lot. Mingi reminded him of someone, though he couldn't put his finger on who. Mingi was entertaining, endearingly awkward, and full of interesting things to say. Yunho had seen how Mingi was holding back a little, but he figured it was just first time jitters. Nothing out of the blue. 

But then this. This bomb. 

A low-tier. 

(No wonder he seemed so awkward and reserved, Yunho finds himself thinking. How would you like being put at a table of five people infinitely more powerful than you, half of whom you don't know?)

Yeosang's secret friend, the one person Yunho has seen Yeosang willingly touch, the hyung of the Academy's most powerful second year. A low-tier. 

For a second, Yunho thinks Mingi must be joking. When did Yeosang start interacting between tiers? Didn't he know how dangerous it was? Yunho is hypocritical, yes, because he has Hongjoong but Hongjoong is different, Hongjoong should've been a high-tier. This is different. This has to be a joke and it's a joke that Yunho doesn't find funny. 

"You must not hate your power then," San says and Yunho realizes San knew. He must've known. 

"Yeah," Mingi says, eyes flicking down to the table. "I don't." 

Oh. 

This isn't a joke. 

There isn't a high-tier out there who hasn't had a day where they hate their power. It's never talked about, it's never acknowledged, but it's plain as day. You hate your power, you hate your tier, you hate yourself. Your power is everything and sometimes you don't want to be everything. 

(Sometimes, you just want to dance.) 

To not hate your power...

He's really a low-tier. 

And Yunho realizes that the person Mingi reminds him of is his mother. 

* * *

Logically, he should stay as far away from Mingi as possible. He's been through heartbreak once, twice. Dance, his mother. He doesn't need more. He doesn't want to feel like that again. He shouldn't tempt himself with things he can't fully love, friends he can't truly have. It's how he's lived for years. 

He's a high-tier. His job is to be a hero. 

But there's something about Mingi and Jongho that draw him in, time and time again. It's so easy with them, it's so natural. It's like being with Hongjoong or learning dance moves with Hoseok. It's as easy as breathing. It's better than breathing. 

It's absolutely terrifying. 

* * *

Yunho keeps coming back. He really shouldn't. He just can't help himself. He likes Mingi and Jongho, he likes them a lot. He's starting to care about them. 

"Jongho-ya's birthday is this week," Mingi tells Yunho over the counter at the convenience store Mingi works at. "Would you like to come?" 

"I, I couldn't impose," says Yunho, fighting the heat crawling up his neck. 

"You're not imposing," Mingi says firmly. "Jongho-ya likes you a lot, it would make him happy if you came." 

He really doesn't have a better excuse than that, so he agrees. 

It's a small birthday. It's just the three of them and for the first time, Yunho feels nervous around them. He feels like he's interrupting something private and intimate. But Jongho seems so happy to see Yunho there, holding a cake with softly burning candles, and the nervousness slowly starts to fade away. 

When Jongho opens the gift his parents had sent, a watch that seems perfectly suited for him, he looks so pleased. But he doesn't take it out, doesn't touch it. Just stares. 

Yunho glances to Mingi in confusion, but Mingi's eyes are on Jongho. 

"Why don't you try it on," Mingi says softly. "It'll be okay." 

Jongho slowly, carefully, pulls the watch from the box. His fingers tremble ever so slightly as he opens the clasp and slips it on. Mingi nods encouragingly. 

With a shallow breath, Jongho goes to close the clasp and _snap_ , suddenly the wristband is broken beneath Jongho's trembling fingers. Jongho looks frustrated, hopeless, on the brink of tears. 

"It's okay," Mingi says before Yunho has even had time to wonder how to console Jongho. "It's an easy fix." 

Barely believing the scene in front of him, Yunho watches as Mingi's eyes burn a gorgeous amber and his fingers nudge the air ever so gently, the watch fixing itself around Jongho's wrist under Mingi's heavy gaze. ("He's good at fixing things," that's what San has said. It hadn't hit Yunho how literal those words were until now.)

The grin that breaks out on Jongho's face, the amazement in his eyes, speaks worlds. Jongho looks at Mingi like Mingi is the greatest person to ever exist, like Mingi is the best present he could have ever asked for, like Mingi is worth the world. Jongho looks at Mingi like Yunho looked at Hoseok. 

Of course. 

And Yunho knows there's no point in trying to stop himself. He's already in too deep. 

* * *

The thing is Mingi is not someone meant to stay in his life.

Mingi reminds Yunho too much of his mother. His kindness, his understanding, his hesitancy, his love, it all screams of Yunho's mother. Beautiful. Unique. Mingi is someone Yunho could love very deeply. 

But Mingi is not someone he gets to keep. 

Mingi is the latest addition to a long list of things Yunho is too afraid of wanting because he can never have them. 

And god, Yunho is so tired of thinking of all the things he can't do. 

He can't see his mother again. He can't dance. He can't go to college. He can't stop becoming a hero. He can't breathe. He can't, he can't, he can't. Just once. God. Just one. 

Just this one, Yunho finds himself promising. All he wants is this one thing, this one friend. He can break all his rules, he can love someone he shouldn't. Just this one. 

* * *

"What would you do," Mingi asks Yunho quietly. Yunho can feel the darkness of the night wrapping around the two of them, feel them being hidden from the world- 

(It's like, 

He doesn't know how to describe it. 

It's like the responsibilities resting on his shoulders fade away when Mingi's there. When Mingi's there, when Mingi's smiling at him, he's comfortable in his own skin. 

When he's with Mingi, he's just Yunho. He's not a speedster or a high-tier or an Academy-almost. He's just Yunho and Mingi's just Mingi.

It's like,

It's like they're the only two people in the world.)

-on this tiny, cramped, fire escape. Here is safe. "If you could go to college, what would you do?" 

What would he do? 

What wouldn't he do? 

If he wasn't a high-tier, if he was a mid-tier or a low-tier, if he had a say in where his life was going, he would do everything. All the dreams he banishes from his head, he'd take them back. He'd abandon the mantra that has been so ingrained in him it has become a fundamental belief. 

_I am a high-tier. I must become a hero_. 

For a second, just for one painful second, he lets himself dream about the person he could've been if that mantra wasn't his truth. 

He dreams of Jongho, kept under Mingi's wing, shielded from the world if only marginally. Allowed to live a life one second out of place, allowed to be more than a high-tier. 

"Be young," 

He dreams of Hongjoong, Hongjoong who he rarely sees. Swept up in his studies, swept up in a friend Yunho suspects is more than a friend, passing out the second his head touches the pillow. 

"Sleep through class," 

He dreams of Wooyoung, San, and Yeosang. In a month, all of them will officially be eighteen. In another life, he likes to dream, they could have caused some chaos together for the sake of being alive. 

"Get wasted on the weekends." 

Yunho breathes a laugh with Mingi. 

He dreams of a wide alley, cardboard strategically laid out on the ground. He dreams of being seven years old, crouching and peering between legs bearing strangely baggy pants. He dreams of learning new moves on the sidewalk and Hoseok's sunshine smile. 

"Dance." 

God, it feels so painfully good to say that out loud. 

"Dance?"

"Yeah," Yunho says, a small, sad smile on his face. He thinks about giving up the thing that brought him the most joy in order to do what he was born to do. "I think it'd be nice to dance." 

Yeah, it would be nice to dance again. But the second is over, the dream is up. 

Back to reality with a slightly heavier chest than usual. 

"I think it would hurt too much," he says when Mingi asks him why he's so afraid to try. "I think only being able to have some part of that life, but never the whole thing, would hurt more than never having that life in the first place." 

_I know that it will hurt too much. I know that only being able to have some part of that life, only to learn you can never truly, fully have it, will hurt more than never having that life in the first place. I have lived that pain._

_I never want to feel like that again._

_I am a high-tier. I must become a hero._

* * *

On the day before Yunho signs his contract, he introduces Hongjoong to his friends. Hongjoong is a hit, because Hongjoong is always a hit, and Yunho feels his lungs decompressing with the relief that the two halves of his life get along. 

Yunho has never told his friends about his mother. He's never told his friends that he used to dream of dancing on cardboard sheets way more than he ever dreamed of becoming a top ten hero. He's never felt the need to. 

He's happy with his friends. Honestly, he is. He laughs easily, smiles naturally, and everything he does has his heart and soul poured into it. Despite all the hurt he's been through, all the pain he's felt, he is a happy person. 

He has never told his friends. There's no need to tell his friends. 

His friends are high-tiers too. They know that their duty is to become strong heroes. They know to enjoy what high-tier life gives them and that dreaming of doing something different is more pain than it will ever be worth. 

His friends know. All of his friends know. Except one. 

* * *

(His mother was a low-tier. His father is a high-tier. He and his young brother are also high-tiers. There had always been whispers that followed them, whispers that his parents hid him from for as long as they could. A high-tier and a low-tier being together is unheard of, is taboo in so many different ways, and people thought and said a lot of different things about his family because of it. 

Eventually, it was too much for his mother to bear. She left their lives permanently. 

Yunho can't really blame her. 

Telling Mingi about her, about how much Mingi reminds him of her, hurts. Mingi is empathetic, holding Yunho's hand while tears trickle down their cheeks and Yunho stares at the wall resolutely. Mingi understands if Yunho needs space from him if Yunho doesn't want to be friends, he understands. 

And Yunho...

Yunho knows that he should end their friendship here. He knows that if he lets Mingi stay after this, that when Mingi leaves, it might feel like dying all over again. It will feel like dying all over again because if he ends their friendship here and never sees Mingi again, it will feel like dying. He doesn't want to feel like that ever again. He doesn't want to lose someone like that ever again. He wants Mingi to stay. 

"Okay," Mingi says. "I'll stay as long as you want." 

Mingi is the only thing Yunho lets himself have. Mingi is the only thing Yunho thinks could ever possibly be worth the pain of losing.)

* * *

Being a contracted hero isn't necessarily bad. It's just frustrating, because for six years all he has done is work to become the best hero he can be and they want him on as a scout. It's a typical first job for speedsters, apparently. 

So he scouts. When villains pop up, he runs to the scene, assesses the situation, and runs back to command to tell them everything they need to know before they choose who to send. Internally, he's begging for them to send him every single time. They never do. 

Six years for this. 

Yunho is so frustrated. 

Six years. A third of his life. Maybe that's why he lets himself listen to the stories Mingi tells of college, of this different universe where everything is so, so free. Maybe that's why he starts letting himself want a life that isn't the one he has. 

He pushes himself to his limits. He runs faster, reports faster, does everything faster. He's a speedster, he has to be fast. Fast is the thing that impresses them most. 

This is all he has.

All he has is his rank, his speed. These are the constants of his life, these are the things that control his fate. Not stories of a world he can only ever long for the image of. 

He pushes himself farther. He pushes himself so far that he gets negligent and eventually crashes through several glass displays while running back from a scene. His body is littered with cuts, his cheekbone is blossoming with the pain of his face colliding with some display item, he can feel the gouging cut on his eyebrow trickling blood into his eye. 

He stops for a second as he pushes himself onto his hands and knees. 

He hasn't crashed so trivially since he was thirteen. 

His body hurts, aches, from running so fast and crashing so hard. He wants to sit for a second, catch his breath. He wants to lie down. He doesn't want to run anymore. 

"You're on the clock," he reminds himself. "Keep moving." 

He starts running. 

When he's done giving his report, when the command room is already halfway into planning who to send and he knows better than to think they'll send him, someone glances at him and says to go get himself fixed up at the ER. No one asks how he became so battered and bloodied. Yunho nods and excuses himself from the room. 

Making his way to the hero's ER is easy. He sits patiently, waiting to be helped. It's not too busy today, it won't be busy till whoever the coordinators sent come back from the fight. The head healer ushes him into a room. 

"Normally I'd have someone else help you out," the healer smiles. He's a shorter man with full cheeks. Yunho kind of wants to poke them. His nametag tells Yunho that his name is Jimin. "But nothing else is going on today, I figured I'd let the others enjoy the calm while it lasts." 

"Of course," Yunho smiles. He's nothing if not pleasant even if all he wants to do is collapse. Jimin's eyes ignite a beautiful sapphire and he starts healing the gaping gorge in Yunho's eyebrow, right above his blackening eye. 

"How's your day been?" Jimin asks casually. 

"I feel like my face says enough," says Yunho, the joke more instinctual than thought-through. Jimin laughs lightly. 

"You're far from the worst I've seen," Jimin responds. "I have a friend, Hobi-hyung, he's abroad right now. I swear, if I told you about some of the times he's been wheeled in here and my heart has stopped, I think yours would too." 

Yunho makes a small sound, something between understanding and whining and laughing. Something that's a lot of things. He feels a lot of things right now. 

He kind of doesn't want to feel anything. 

"All right," Jimin chirps, pulling his hand away from Yunho's fixed eyebrow. "That's the worst. The rest of this is an easy fix." 

An easy fix. 

He wants...

He wants. 

"Actually," Yunho says, trying to stand up. "I think I should go. I have to go." 

"You're not healed yet," protests Jimin. 

"Please," Yunho begs. "I have to go. I need to leave." 

Jimin levels Yunho with a look and for a second, Yunho things Jimin will physically restrain him to keep him here until he's healed. 

And then, 

Jimin sees something that makes him take half a step back. Maybe Jimin sees the desperation in his eyes. Maybe Jimin has had a day like this too. Maybe Jimin knows how priceless the presence of a good friend is. Maybe Jimin is or was like him. 

"Okay," Jimin says. "Be back by tomorrow morning, show up ten minutes before visiting hours begin at eight. I'll let you in at the side and heal everything. I'll mark you for overnight care, no one will question if you're missing from the hero dorms for a night." 

"Thank you," Yunho says, relief flooding through him and resisting the urge to embrace Jimin. He trips over his feet as he heads for the exit. "Thank you so much." 

"Do what you need to do," Jimin says. 

He runs to Mingi's at the speed of sound. 

When Mingi opens the door, mild confusion on his face and drowning in an oversized t-shirt, Yunho feels like he's taking a breath for the first time in six years. 

And it feels so painfully good. 

"I'm sorry," Yunho says. Mingi cradles his cheeks and Yunho barely stops himself from closing his eyes and falling into Mingi. "I should have called." 

"Don't say that," Mingi says as he pulls one of Yunho's arms around his shoulder, wrapping his own around Yunho's waist, and leads them to the couch. "You're always welcome here." 

Yunho could cry. 

(He doesn't let Mingi call Wooyoung. He doesn't want to be healed. He just wants to see Mingi and tells Mingi as much. 

Instead, Mingi pulls a first aid kid Yunho knows is frequently used on Jongho and passes a bag of frozen peas to Yunho for his blackening eye.)

"You gonna tell me what happened?" 

Yunho feels the shame crawling up his throat. "Wanna guess?" 

"I'd rather not," and Yunho can't help but laugh a little bit. Mingi doesn't say anything else. 

Yunho's grateful for it. He's grateful for the way the world melts away and he is just Jeong Yunho, exhausted and overworked Jeong Yunho, lying in the comfort of one of his closest friends. 

He wishes every moment could feel like this. 

"Hey Mingi," Yunho says, his head rested in the crook of Mingi's neck. He swallows to keep his voice from cracking. "Tell me about school?" 

"Okay." 

Yunho can't help himself from intertwining his fingers with Mingi's as Mingi talks. He can't help the silent tears that slide down his face as Mingi tells him about casually running into Hongjoong on campus and going for lunch together. He soaks in every word that Mingi says, imagines standing in the middle of this beautiful world that Mingi has painted. 

He takes breath after painful breath for the first time in a long time. He lets himself breathe and dream of a life that isn't his. 

His heart aches with longing. 

* * *

It's common knowledge that the most important person in Mingi's life is Jongho. Sometimes, Yunho is a little jealous. Sometimes, Yunho wishes he could have someone like Mingi caring about him more than anyone else in the world. 

Still, Yunho thinks that if any of them deserve Mingi's love, it's Jongho. 

When Mingi (heart so clearly in his throat) calls and says that Jongho is gone somewhere in the city, Yunho agrees to search for him and doesn't say anything. He doesn't want Mingi to feel like he did. He runs to Wooyoung's apartment. 

"Go to Mingi's," he says. Wooyoung's eyes go wide, hand reaching back to grab his phone and keys. "Whatever happened, don't say anything." 

Wooyoung nods and Yunho runs off. 

The thing about his speed is that if he's not paying attention, he'll miss something. So Yunho runs through every section ten times over, desperately searching for Jongho and calling his name. Between the running and the yelling and the searching and the worrying, Yunho is exhausted. 

When Jongho is found, not by Yunho but by Yeosang and San who have just flown home from a mission overseas, Yunho doesn't say anything. A look at Yeosang and San reveals they know not to say anything either. 

They don't say anything about the cracked drywall Wooyoung found Mingi under. They don't say anything about the disaster zone that is Mingi and Jongho's apartment. They don't say anything when Wooyoung starts healing the bruises that color Jongho's sides and raw knuckles beneath dried blood. They don't say anything when Mingi activates his power and starts fixing everything around him. 

Mingi never asks for anything, never pushes the conversation past what others want. Mingi always lets them be themselves, never says anything about how they all so heavily rely on him. Mingi never says anything they don't want to hear. 

At the very least, they can do the same for him.

* * *

In the summer, he's assigned hero work. When he first gets the notification, he thinks he's going to cry with relief because finally, _finally,_ they're giving him a chance (even though, comparatively, he hasn't had to wait much time at all). 

Then he sees where they're sending him. 

And all he can hear is his heart in his chest, the blood rushing through his ears. Because of all the cities in the country, of all the countries in the world, they're sending him back to his hometown. 

Yunho wants to stay in the city he has learned to call home, near Mingi working a thousand different part-time jobs. He wants to stay and be the person he is, he doesn't want to go back to the person he was. 

If he goes, he becomes a hero. 

He's been waiting for this, working for this, for six years. Seven, really. No matter how much his stomach drops at the prospect of going back, there's no decision to be made. 

It's scary how little the city he grew up in has changed. Despite his fear, he walks past the house that he grew up in and finds it looks just the same. He walks the path that he and Hoseok used to take every Tuesday and Friday in reverse, winding his way back to the alley. 

There's no one there now. Yunho supposes that's the only thing that has changed. 

It's for the best that the alley is empty, that the hip hop loving street dancers of his youth are far from his sight. If they were still there, if some reincarnation of them were still there, well, he doesn't know how he'd react. He doesn't want to feel like that again. 

After that first time, he never goes back. He grows up, as he's been waiting to for so many years, and becomes a hero. 

* * *

The summer ends and Yunho is sent back with a promotion. No longer a scout, a first responder instead. Guaranteed to be sent out twice a week to be the first hero on the scene. There's a handful of other speedsters who are first responders, all older and far more experienced than him, they call him hoobae and treat him as one of their own. 

(None of them talk about the fact that Yunho is the fastest among them.)

He's never had speedster friends before, but he finds that it's kind of nice. It's nice to have people who understand your power and the struggles that come with it so intimately, it's nice to have people to look up to and learn from. Yuna and Yubin, incredibly kind girls only two years older than him, take him under their wing and show him the ropes of being a real hero. They teach him a card game called speed and it's so much fun to play using their power. It's nice, they're nice, and he's happy. 

Time passes quickly when he's lost in his work, in his life. He fights heroes and races his seonbae around the city, he hangs out with them in the hero dorms. It's been a while since he's seen Mingi. It's been a while since he's craved Mingi's world so intensely that it hurt. He doesn't long for it so much when he gets to be a hero and feel like he's doing what he's supposed to do. 

(But he still dreams. He can't escape the dreams of dancing, of going to college with Mingi and Hongjoong, of having Hoseok in his life, of seeing his mother again. He banishes these dreams time and time again, but they keep coming back.) 

If anything, he supposes, he's happy enough. He's not happy, he's not satisfied. If the plague of dreams has taught him anything, it's that he'll never be happy and satisfied with hero life, not when he knows how good life, how good breathing, can feel. But he's happy enough, he's content. There's no point asking for anything else. 

* * *

There's a villain with control over the earth that they can't quite takedown. Yunho had gone up against it the second time it showed up and landed most of his hits until the villain raised the ground and tripped Yunho into the side of a building. He spent eight hours on the operating table in the ER and three days recovering in the ICU and Jimin had told Yunho congratulations, his heart had stopped in his chest when Yunho was wheeled in on the gurney. Wooyoung stands at Jimin's side and similarly tears into Yunho. 

They're harsh but it's nice, in a way, because it shows that they care about him. 

Because honestly, it's a miracle he can walk. He'd nearly snapped his spinal cord, he'd nearly torn ligaments that can't be healed, even by Jimin. It's a miracle that he will be able to do hero work again someday. He's off duty for a bit, they want him to spend a month recovering and receiving continual treatment from the healers, and he won't complain. Everything hurts, he can't even think of using his speed right now. 

But he's also the one who went the longest against the villain, so Yunho finds himself properly in the command room for the first time. 

The command room is different from regular hero work. Theoretically, Yunho knew this. Yunho knew that this is where most strategy-based high-tiers work, Yunho knew that the smartest worked here, Yunho knew what they did. Theoretically, he knew all of these things. 

"What's most useful?" they ask him and his stomach lurches as he realizes that when they say what, they mean who. Who's most useful. Like the heroes doing the fighting are nothing more than tools in a box, weapons in a video game, moves in a dance battle.

And with his heart aching, he tells them what he knows. 

Speed won't work. He explains that super speed only works as long as the speedster has control of their body, has control over their momentum. They need to be grounded to work effectively and this villain can raise the ground so abruptly it throws off a speedster and sends them into the side of a building. So no, speed won't work. 

An aerial power is recommended, especially if the hero can separate the villain from the ground. Intangibility is also recommended, someone who won't be affected by objects in their way and can potentially follow the villain if it goes underground. 

"What about strength?" they ask him. "Would someone with super strength, someone strong enough to crush the rocks with a hit and not scramble for cover, would that have a chance?" 

No, not strength. He wants to say that so badly. There's no need for strength as long as they have the other two. He wants to believe that so badly. 

With his chest collapsing, Yunho nods and knows that he has condemned Jongho to hero work a month after his eighteenth birthday. 

* * *

(Jongho and the others the command room choose to send win. And Yunho knows that being a hero is what Jongho wants most, but he still feels the guilt building in the pit of his stomach when he watches Mingi say goodbye to Jongho as Jongho leaves with Yunho for the hero dorms. He feels the guilt building because he feels like he has taken Jongho away from his last chance at freedom and he has separated Mingi from the person he loves most.)

* * *

He wonders if by telling the truth back in the command room, he has hurt Mingi. He wonders if he has made Mingi go through what he went through. 

He wonders and he has no way of knowing. 

He hates himself for it. 

* * *

Yunho's on duty for most of New Years, so he can't enjoy the festivities. Not that the off-call heroes do much to enjoy their night other than getting blindingly drunk. He can't blame them. Off-call nights are few and far between. 

It's four in the morning and he's finally done for the night. He's trudging towards the dorms, too tired to use his speed, when he notices the snow. 

Snow isn't that strange, it's certainly cold enough to snow. but the snow is only falling in a hundred-meter radius and as tired as he is, Yunho is pretty sure that snow isn't supposed to fall like that. So he steps further into the snow, looking around for the person who caused it. For all he knows, it's someone who got drunk and needs a hand getting home. 

In the center of the snowfall is a two-story building not used anymore and as Yunho looks up his heart stops in his chest. 

On the roof of the building, Hoseok is dancing in the snow. Eyes closed, limbs flowing slowly, fluidly, more contemporary than anything Yunho's ever seen from Hoseok. There's no music, no beat, just Hoseok slowly flowing through the air with snow falling around him. 

Yunho is moments, seconds, from saying something when he stops. 

He walks to his dorm without a word, lets Hoseok keep dancing on the roof in the snow. The world where he and Hoseok danced on the sidewalk ended a long time ago. They're not friends anymore, they're not seonbae and hoobae. They don't know each other. They're a storm bringer and a speedster, heroes meant to help however they can. 

Calling out, pretending to be anything else, he doesn't want that pain. He doesn't want to feel like that again.

He's lived this way for years. 

* * *

The days where Yeosang and San are in town are few and far between. They don't need to say anything for Yunho to know that their work is confidential, important. Yeosang and San have always been the most powerful of them. 

But when one of those days comes, one of those miraculous days where Yeosang and San are in town, Mingi doesn't have class (or is willing to skip), and the heroes and Wooyoung have a vacation day to spare, they always spend those days together. Those days are always fun, so much fun, full of a freedom Yunho has only felt when he used to dance. Those days are the days where Yunho can breathe. 

Today the air should be flowing through his lungs like never before. Today Hongjoong is here with a friend named Seonghwa, quiet and reserved Seonghwa, and Yunho can tell from the way Hongjoong looks at him how much he means to Hongjoong. Today there's eight of them and it's natural, the way they fight for pastries and steal sips of each other's drinks, it's comfortable. Today is the closest he'll ever get to living one of his dreams. Today he should be breathing easy. 

But today, today Yunho can't breathe. 

Mingi, the same Mingi who never asks for much, tells them his idea of changing the world. Of creating a world where your power doesn't control your future, where you're free to become whoever you want to become, where you can dream. Mingi tells them this idea and Yunho can't breathe. 

He does his part. He pretends that none of this bothers him. He admonishes Mingi for not taking care of himself. He does what a good friend does. 

But he can't breathe. 

When the topic of lunch is brought up, Yunho all but vaults up offering to go find food. They can pay him back later, it's fine, he needs to stretch his legs he claims. Anything to get out of that room, anything to leave that conversation. All the talking, discussing, suggesting, trying to figure out how to change the world. 

If he stays any longer, he's going to cry. 

So when the chance to leave arises, he all but throws himself out of the room, out of the apartment, and on to the street. He doesn't know where he's going and he doesn't particularly care, anything to getaway. 

Everything they're saying, everything they're speculating. This idea that you can live a life different than the one you've been handed, that you should have the right to pursue your dreams, that the tiers are meaningless. 

It might never work. It could fail entirely. 

If they get their hopes up, if they dream that this is something they can do, if they start living better lives only to realize they can never fully grasp them...

If it all comes crashing down...

 _It feels like dying_. 

It is unprecedented pain. The world thrown askew, everything draining from the body, lungs unable to take a proper breath, feeling as if happiness will never come again. It feels like dying. 

Scared, pained, feeble. Feeling that there's no point because everything good, everyone good, would have to be given up or would leave eventually. Thinking that it's easier to never want more than what's given, never try to have things that bring about happiness, because then the pain of losing them can never come. If you never dream for it, you can never die from it. 

It's a terrible way to live. It's the only way to survive without getting hurt. 

It's not that he thinks Mingi's wrong. It's not that he can't get behind the argument that Mingi is making. 

It's that Yunho can't go through that again. It's that he doesn't want any of his friends to ever go through what he did. He doesn't want his friends to die. 

"Yunho-ya!"

Feet faltering, Yunho nearly trips over himself from surprise. A small burst of inky air and Hongjoong is in front of him, concern in his eyes. 

"Yunho-ya," repeats Hongjoong, stepping forward immediately. His voice is soft, full of understanding, and Yunho comes to a terrible realization. "Talk to me."

Mingi's already in too deep. The others are too. They're too excited by the prospect of changing the world, too enamored by the thoughts of having a happier life. 

He can't save them from themselves.

"Hey," whispers Hongjoong, brushing a tear from Yunho's cheek. He didn't realize he was crying. "I know this is a lot for you. It's okay if you don't want to help, they'll understand."

And it's too much, the frustration and the pain and the fear. Yunho lets himself lean down into Hongjoong, hide his face in the crook of the older's neck, and breathe shakily as his tears soak the collar of Hongjoong's shirt. 

"It's okay," Hongjoong soothes. "It's all going to be okay." 

"Hyung," he cries. "What if it fails? What if they get their hopes up for nothing? What if they lose everything? 

"I don't want them to end up like me," he babbles. "I don't want them to go through the pain I went through. And I can't, I can't go through that again. Hyung, it feels like dying. I don't want them to feel that. I love them so much." 

"I know," Hongjoong rubs small circles into Yunho's back. "I know you do, Yunho-ya. They love you too. That's why they want to try." 

* * *

Just this one, that's what he told himself. Just this one thing, just Mingi. 

He thought it wouldn't be too much. That maybe he would be able to keep Mingi, it was the first thing he'd hoped for in a long time. 

Yunho is terrified of Mingi's idea. He's terrified of it failing, of it working, of everything about it. This idea, this plan, it could derail everything he holds to be true. 

He's afraid of what keeping Mingi in his life might mean. 

But it's Mingi. So even though Yunho won't help like the others do, even though every show of support is faked, he stays. 

He stays and he remembers what it feels like to believe in something, to love something so strongly you're willing to dedicate your life to it. 

He stays and he waits to pick up the pieces of their disappointment. 

* * *

He almost forgets about everything. The keyword of that sentence being almost. That is to say, he doesn't forget at all. 

He goes about his life, about existence as a hero. Everything is normal. He acts as a first responder. He plays super sped-up versions of card games with Yuna and Yubin. He grabs a meal in the cafeteria with Jongho once a week to make sure the younger is holding up okay. He gets injured a few times, gets sent to the ER and talks with Jimin, and gets back to work. Everything is normal. 

Everything is normal except in the back of his head is the knowledge that his friends are gearing themselves up to change the world and reach for different lives, and it terrifies him. 

Everything is normal until the papers start coming in. 

Yunho knows Mingi and his college friends are behind them, these papers that talk about the discrimination of the tier system and the theories of true power and the freedom to have a voice in one's future. It couldn't be anyone else. 

For the most part, the papers are unacknowledged amongst heroes. Talking about them, about what they imply, is dangerous. Talking about them would get you sent packing to a tiny town in the middle of nowhere or sent to the bottom of the ladder. But then the paper about the power as a muscle comes out, this idea that the power can be strengthened and the body trained to make the individual more powerful, and whispers stretch through the night. 

"Low-tiers being heroes?" Yuna whispers to Yunho and Yubin at a light night get together in Yubin's room. "It's impossible, isn't it?" 

"It's crazy," Yubin says, conflict written across her face. "I've never met anyone who wasn't a speedster who I think could do our job." 

Yunho just hums, stares at the floor, and wonders how the hell he is going to pick up the pieces of his broken friends when they realize that they are the minority, that everyone else is content and happy enough with the way life is now. To everyone else, satisfaction and happiness are foreign notions. 

"Hoobae," Yubin nudges Yunho's knee, pulling him back to the moment. "What do you think? Could anyone but a high-tier speedster do our job?" 

"Of course not," says Yuna. "No one else can keep up with us."

"Not necessarily," the words escape unwittingly. The girls look at him with wide eyes and Yunho wants to shrink in on himself. "I just, I know someone who isn't a speedster who can keep up with me." 

"Who?" Yuna hisses, fighting to keep her voice down. 

"Someone I used to go to school with," Yunho manages. His heart is pounding in his ears. "Back in elementary school. A teleport, a mid-tier. He's the only non-speedster I've ever met who could keep up with me." 

"Could he keep up with you now, though?" Yubin asks. Her gaze bores into the side of Yunho's head. 

Is this what it means to support Mingi's idea? Is this what it means to get people's hopes up? 

Does he do that by telling the truth?

Slowly, hesitantly, he nods. "He still keeps up with me." 

The girls sit back, astounded, and they don't talk about it for the rest of the night. They play cards, gossip mindlessly about the top ten heroes, and let the implications of the truth sit heavy among them. 

Nothing is normal, but everyone pretends that everything is. 

* * *

"Appa," Yunho whispers into his phone. It's far colder than a normal spring night, he's so stiff. He's so numb. 

"Yunho-ya," his father says, voice full of surprise and warmth. "It's been a while." 

It has. Yunho doesn't call his father or his little brother nearly as often as it should. He wants to blame it on the pain that crushed them, the pain that made it hard for them to see each other, but maybe it was his fear of that pain that's kept him from being with his family more. "I'm sorry, Appa. I'll, I'll try to visit home soon." 

"It's in the past," Yunho can hear the smile in his voice. "How is my eldest son?" 

"I'm-" and the word fine gets stuck in Yunho's throat. He can't lie to his father. He swallows the knot in his throat and feels the tears threatening to choke him. "I'm not so good." 

"Oh Yunho," his father whispers. "I'm sorry. Is there anything I can do to help?" 

He nods numbly, barely registering that his father can't see him right now. "I just, I wanted to ask you something." 

It's something he has to know no matter how terrible he feels asking. 

"Of course. Anything for you." 

"Appa," Yunho's voice breaks, and the first tear rolls down his cheek. "If you could go back, would you still choose eomma?" 

His father's inhale is sharp, his surprise is clear. Yunho feels terrible for asking, he doesn't want to bring back all the pain. He doesn't want his father to fall apart again. But he has to know if-

"In a heartbeat," his father says. "Loving your eomma was worth the pain of losing her. I would choose to love her every single time." 

There is no stopping the tears that stream down his face, the snot that pulls at his nose. Yunho cries into the phone unashamedly, cries to his father, who he hasn't called in too long. 

"Yunho-ya. Love, real love, will always be worth any risk. Love is worth the world." 

* * *

Sometimes, he thinks of Hoseok in the snow. 

He wonders if

After all this time-

After growing more powerful than ever imagined- 

After fighting countless villains in countless countries- 

After succeeding to become the strongest hero he could be- 

Hoseok ever regrets giving up the best thing in the world.

Sometimes, he thinks of Hoseok in the snow and knows that Hoseok would probably give anything to dance the way they used to, that Hoseok would live through the pain of having to stop dancing all over again if it meant he could dance for one stolen moment. 

Would Yunho?

* * *

He gets to spend this summer in the city, he's proved that he's strong enough to stay. More and more incoming heroes are getting sent abroad, but Yunho and Jongho get to stay. So the two of them work, rarely sent on missions together but sometimes in a blue moon yes, and ignore the whispers in the back of their mind. 

Yunho is sent as the first responder to a villain who's raising hell on the north end of town, one with control over glass and has a tornado of deadly shards, and runs as fast as he can. Villains at the north end of town are the furthest from headquarters and the command room, it always takes longer to get there. 

When he gets there, he can't believe his eyes. Or his ears. 

The villain is in the center of the street, completely detained. The cherry blossom trees that line the block have grown exponentially, the branches wrapping around the villain, leaves gagging it, and roots ripping through the concrete to chain it to the ground. Two people, college students by the look of them, are singing (but they have the exact same voice, although Yunho barely has the brain space to notice that) and the trees at the end of the street are slinking back into place. And there's glass everywhere. On the ground, in the air. Hovering, quivering, under someone's control. 

Under Mingi's control. 

Yunho gapes at Mingi, eyes burning amber as he steps into the street with a look of utmost concentration. Mingi's arms move carefully through the air and the glass is fixing itself, mending itself, going back into the windows they came from. And Mingi is smiling, the glow fading from his eyes and revealing a bloody face and bloodier arms, as he happily turns to the people behind him. 

"Mingi-ya?" Yunho says, unable to stop himself. He can hear the other heroes arriving behind him. 

Mingi smiles tiredly, "Hey." 

And promptly stumbles forward. Yunho is at Mingi's side in an instant, catching Mingi before he's even fallen halfway over, and cradles Mingi's head as he eases them both onto the ground. 

"Hey, it's okay," Yunho finds himself whispering, more as a comfort to himself than anything else. He brushes Mingi's hair out of his eyes, fingers trembling over the blood and cut that will inevitably scar Mingi's face. He feels like throwing up. "I've got you, you're going to be okay." 

Mingi breathes something Yunho can't hear, a hint of a crooked smile on his face. 

"You're so stupid," Yunho curses. "Why are you so fucking stupid? Why did you step in?" 

"It was Mingi-ssi's idea," Yunho twists his head to see one of the others stepping closer, the corners of his mouth strangely turned up, his voice different from the one he was singing in. "He came up with this crazy plan and it worked." 

"Why would you let him," Yunho demands before he can stop himself. "Look how hurt he is, why would you let him?" 

How could this ever be worth the pain?

"Because he's right," the other says. "Anyone can be a hero. Anyone should be able to become a hero if they want to." 

"Speedster," one of the heroes from the end of the street calls. Yoojung, San's friend, an Academy alumna. "What's going on?"

Yunho stares at the person standing in front of him. Stares at the other one, still singing, and faintly realizes that it's his voice that's controlling the trees and detaining the villain. It's a unique power, capable of being incredibly strong if trained correctly. 

Someone that gave Mingi hope that he was right, that he could succeed.

"We're clear," Yunho calls back, voice loud and clear. "The villain's been neutralized. Prepare for transport." 

"Do you say that every time," Mingi mumbles from Yunho's lap. Yunho looks down, relief flooding through him as Mingi grins. "You sound like you're in a drama." 

"Of course you'd say that," Yunho breathes a laugh. He squeezes his eyes shut, bowing his head down and lightly knocking their foreheads together. "God, I am going to kill you when you're healed." 

"I know," Mingi says. "Jongho-ya will probably want to as well. And Yeosang-ah. And Wooyoung-ah. And Hongjoong-hyung. God, all of them are going to want to kill me, aren't they? You have to promise to kill me first." 

And Yunho chokes on his disbelief as Mingi smiles up at him. 

* * *

Mingi had mostly collapsed from exhaustion, apparently. He hadn't strained his power again ("how many times have you strained it," Yunho asks in a strangled tone, to which Mingi promises he's only seriously strained it once), he just needed rest. He hadn't lost an unreasonable amount of blood and his arms would be fine. But like Yunho suspected, the cut on his face would scar. 

(The best healers like Jimin and Wooyoung, the one's who could heal Mingi without leaving a scar, work in the hero hospitals, who don't take civilians. It's something, Yunho realizes, that's incredibly unfair and Mingi probably wants to fix.)

"I'm fine, Yunho-ya, really," Mingi protests as Yunho insists on walking Mingi home. "You're being ridiculous." 

"I'm really not," Yunho says, staring pointedly at Mingi's arms which are completely wrapped in white bandages. From a distance, it looks like Mingi's wearing a white long-sleeve shirt under his tattered one, that's how extensive the bandaging is. "Have you looked in the mirror lately?" 

"Can't say I have," Mingi sighs. "Really, I'll be fine. Don't you have a debriefing or something to go to?" 

He totally does. It will be important, too, they'll need Yunho there because Yunho is the only one who saw what happened. And they won't talk about the implications of low-tiers being able to take down villains unless Yunho tells them. 

But Mingi is the person he chose, Mingi is the thing he risks everything to love. 

"That's not the point," Yunho says, continuing to guide Mingi down the street. "I'll go after I know you're safely home." 

"Yunho-ya," Mingi twists, planting both bandaged hands on Yunho's shoulders and stopping them in the middle of the sidewalk. "You have to go back. You have to tell them that low-tiers and mid-tiers could be powerful enough to take down villains if they were given the right training." 

"Is that really what's going through your head right now?" Yunho snaps, exasperation taking over. "Mingi-ya, you're lucky you weren't stabbed by a larger shard. You could have died." 

"And?" Mingi challenges, eyes daring Yunho to say anything else. "I could have died, you're right. But so could you, so could Jongho-ya, every single time you guys go out and I worry endlessly _every_. _single_. _time_. But you go because it's your job. I stepped in because it's the best way to start fixing the world." 

Yunho stares at Mingi, searches his eyes for a lie, and finds none. Mingi is in so, so deep. 

"Is this really worth dying for?" Yunho asks helplessly. "Is this really worth all the pain and heartbreak you'll go through?" 

"Yes," he responds instantly. "I would risk my life a thousand times if it meant changing the world into what it could be. I want to see people be the people they want to be, not what others say they should. I want to see people have dreams and be happy.

"I want to see you be happy," Mingi says honestly. The words slam into Yunho, flood his lungs with the oxygen of a beautiful, wonderful breath. "I want you to not be afraid of getting your hopes up. I want to see you dance." 

And Yunho...

Yunho is still terrified of everything failing. Yunho is still terrified of how deep Mingi is. Yunho is still terrified that if he tries to dance again, he will have to give it up and go through that pain all over again. 

And Yunho...

Yunho misses loving something, believing in something, so strongly you dedicate your life to it. Yunho misses caring about something as strongly as Mingi cares about this.

Yunho misses dancing. 

And he's so torn, he's so conflicted, because he has lived so much of his life believing that dreams aren't worth their pain. He has spent so much time repeating his mantra, repeating Hoseok's words, telling himself that he has to go the way high-tier life demands of him. 

_I am a high-tier. It is my duty to be a hero._

_I am a high-tier._

_I am-_

"Okay," Yunho says, stepping forward to lean forehead against Mingi's for a second. "Okay, I'll, I'll try. Text me the second you get home."

"I will, I promise," Mingi breathes. With a smile, he gently pushes Yunho away. "Now go!"

_I am tired of being consumed by what they want me to be._

Yunho races away at the speed of sound. He has a world to upend. 

_I am Jeong Yunho. I want to be a dancer._

* * *

Debriefings are always open to the general hero body and, though others rarely come, this one is packed. It seems like every hero, active and retired, in a fifty-kilometer radius has come. There are even healers and high-tiers Yunho has never seen outside the command room. 

Yunho sees Jongho near the front amongst the other rookies, spies the other speedsters gathered in a clump in the middle of the room. He spots Jimin and Wooyoung exchanging whispers near the back door, ready to sprint out the second someone needs them at the hospital. 

He's shocked to see a handful of the top ten heroes sitting in the upper boxes, tucked nearly out of sight, far from curious gazes. Hoseok is among them. He swears he can hear Hoseok murmur his name when he steps up to give his report. 

"Introduce yourself for the record," a nameless retired hero turned supervisor says. He gestures towards a girl, a mid-tier if Yunho's remembering correctly, with the power to replay any scene she's witnessed. 

"Jeong Yunho. Speedster. First Responder," Yunho states. He hopes he sounds confident. He probably doesn't. 

"You were sent to deal with a villain on the North end of the city, correct?" 

"Correct."

"When the rest of the team arrived, the villain had been restrained, correct?"

"Correct."

"Describe how you took the villain down." 

Is loving something worth the pain of losing it?

"I didn't." 

It has to be. 

Whispers, murmurs, gasps ripple through the room. Yunho wonders what Mingi would say if he could see this. Probably something about how Yunho really was living in a drama. 

"Pardon?" the supervisor asks, surprise evident on his face. 

"I didn't take down the villain," Yunho says, swallowing his fear. "When I arrived, the villain was caged in by the branches of trees which had grown exponentially. The villain had been gagged by the leaves and the roots of the trees had chained the villain in place. I did none of that."

"Had another hero arrived prior to you?" questions the supervisor. "Perhaps an Academy student who didn't want to get in trouble for acting before they had been contracted?" 

"There was no contracted hero there and there was no Academy student present to my knowledge," Yunho responds. He can feel every single gaze in the room sitting heavy on him. 

"The person who took down the villain was no longer present? We will have to-"

"I didn't say that," Yunho interrupts, resisting the urge to flinch at the look of irritation and disbelief on the supervisor's face. 

There's really no going back now. 

“The villain was taken down by three people using their powers together. One, Jeon Jeongguk, has the power to control the growth of plants with his voice, specifically, when he sings. Another, Lee Keonhee, has the power to perfectly recreate any voice he hears. Together, the two sang and used the cherry blossom trees lining the street to restrain the villain.”

More murmurs, more whispers. Yunho thinks of how much he wants to dance, how much he wants to breathe, how much he wants to live. 

“The third,” Yunho continues, his voice strong. “Song Mingi, has the power to fix things that have been broken. I arrived as Song Mingi-ssi took control of the shards of broken glass the villain was using to wreak destruction and used his power to mend the glass and send it back to the windows of buildings the villain had pulled them from.

“Those three are the ones that defeated the villain.” 

Yunho stares back at the supervisor, waiting for something to be said. The whole room is quiet, tense, waiting to burst. 

"Very well," the supervisor says. "Thank you for your report, Jeong Yunho-ssi. We will do our best to find these high-tiers you have identified and-"

"Excuse me, sir," Yunho interrupts again. Because Mingi is the person he chose and if risking everything to love Mingi means risking everything for Mingi's dream, there's no decision to be made. Mingi is worth the world. "But you've assumed incorrectly. All three were low-tiers." 

And the world explodes around him. 

* * *

He doesn't see Hoseok afterward. He doesn't see Yuna or Yubin either. Instead, Jongho grabs Yunho and drags them both up to where Wooyoung is standing with a shit-eating grin stretched across his face and pulls all three of them out of the debriefing hall. 

Laughing, Jongho pulls them along, the three of them linked together and tripping over their feet as they run from the chaos Yunho has caused. 

"You did it," Wooyoung screeches when they reach the outside, all but leaping into Yunho. Wooyoung and Jongho cling to his sides, loud smiles and amazed eyes. "Holy shit!"

Tangled together, they lean against the outside of the building, something breathless between them. Something breathless and exciting and full of hope. 

Yunho had forgotten what hope felt like. 

It feels like breathing. 

* * *

Yunho is restless afterward. So is Mingi. So is everyone. So is the world. 

Now that they know that high-tiers aren't the only ones powerful enough to take down villains, now that they know that anyone can be strong enough to become a hero (and if so, why should anyone be forced to be a hero), now that they know for sure. Change is imminent. 

"We'll start with the Academy," Mingi tells Yunho. "There's always been something wrong with their acceptance system." 

"How so?" Yunho asks. 

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Mingi lifts his head up to grin at Yunho from where he's perched behind his computer, arms still bound in bandages and glasses slipping off the bridge of his nose. "They didn't let you in." 

Yunho's heart constricts in his chest and he knows that he'll always be in too deep when it comes to Mingi. That Mingi's dream will be in his life as long as Mingi is (and he wants Mingi to stay for a very long time. Forever, preferably).

He's still afraid of the pain of losing what he hopes for. He still never wants to go through it again, never wants his friends to feel what he felt. 

But now,

Now, he tries something different. Now, he tries to help. Maybe, just maybe, if there's enough of them trying, hoping, they might actually have a shot. 

At the very least, Mingi is someone he loves very deeply, Mingi is someone worth the pain of losing. Yunho is willing to risk it all for Song Mingi. 

* * *

He goes to see his family. His father has more wrinkles, his little brother has hit his first big growth spurt. His father wraps him in a teary hug and his brother sticks by his side wherever he goes, neither of them says anything about it. 

He is, for the first time in a long time, not afraid of what it would mean to lose them. 

He is not afraid because he has the privilege of loving them, and that is worth the world. 

* * *

When he turns twenty-one, two things happen. 

First, he teams up with Hongjoong to take down a trio of villains. It had been happening more and more in the months since Jeongguk, Keonhee, and Mingi had taken down the first villain, _it_ being low-tiers and mid-tiers stepping up to fight or stall the villains that plagued their world. It had happened a lot and Yunho often showed up to scenes with villains half-way taken care of. But this was the first time a hero and non-hero had teamed up. 

Really, it could only be Yunho and Hongjoong. 

Fighting in a pair had never felt so natural. A lifetime of being with Hongjoong, of playing ridiculous games of tag, of training and sparring together, made fighting alongside Hongjoong as instinctive as breathing. Their powers worked together so naturally, their styles complemented each other so well. The trio of villains is taken down in record time and Yunho can’t help the smile that takes over his face as he and Hongjoong high-five. 

Second, he meets Hoseok again. It's in the summer, almost a year after Yunho shook the hero world with his debriefing, in the most unlikely of places. 

He's only in this room because Mingi asked him to be there, even though the people around him are so different from him. These are the people who write the papers, the ones who spread Mingi's ideas around. These are low-tiers, mid-tiers, high school students, college students, office workers, retired folks, all sorts of people. 

"All sorts of people, all sorts of dreams," Mingi says to him when Yunho's breath hitches. "I wanted them to see that high-tiers and heroes are open to this too, I hope that's okay. If it helps, you're not the only one." 

"It's okay," Yunho exhales. He's nervous, but he doesn't have to give a speech or anything. Just him being in the room inspires hope. "Anything for you." 

So he talks to people, drifts from conversation to conversation. It's a mixer, maybe. It's an introduction. It's nice. It's good, talking to people who aren't afraid to reach for their dreams, who aren't afraid of only getting them halfway. It's reassuring. 

He's talking to Namjoon, the same Namjoon that's been working with Mingi on fixing the world for over a year and a half now, when Namjoon calls out "Hobi!" over his shoulder and when Yunho turns, Hoseok is in front of him. And it's been years, it's been a decade, since they were last together, and for a second all they can do is stare at each other.

Yunho feels like the wind's been knocked out of him. " _Hyung_." 

Hoseok smiles at Yunho with the same sunshine smile, a smile that could light up the world. "Yunho-ya." 

They hug so hard they end up falling over and Yunho barely stops himself from crying because it has been _so long_ and he has missed Hoseok _so much_. Because Hoseok being here means Hoseok thinks Mingi's dream is worth the pain and any doubts Yunho has about making the right choice fade immediately. Hoseok is here, smiling and laughing and nearly crying with him, and that means Hoseok wants to dance again too. Hoseok is here and maybe, years from now, they can be who they used to be. 

* * *

(Also, he's finally taller than Hoseok and he's never going to let Hoseok live that down.)

* * *

The thing is, as Mingi and Namjoon will explain to Yunho several times over, is that fixing the world will take time. There are lots of people like Yunho out there, people stuck in their tiers, stuck in their powers, terrified of the pain that could come with dreaming of a different tomorrow. There are lots of people completely certain in the superiority of high-tiers, in the inferiority of low-tiers, who believe that the rank system is essential to organizing life. There are lots of people content, happy enough with how the world is now, and have convinced themselves that contentment is satisfaction. That being happy enough is being happy. Fixing the world is a matter of law and legislation, yes, but it's also a matter of mindset. Fixing the world will take time. 

Yunho knows that he will have to finish his ten-year contract. He'll be a hero until he's almost twenty-nine. That's fine. 

Afterward, afterward, maybe things will be different enough. Maybe he'll be different enough, strong enough, that he won't give in to whatever supervisor role and political seat they have set up for him, maybe he'll be able to say no. 

Maybe he'll be able to dance. 

Actually...

* * *

Slowly, with fear gradually receding and hope finally growing, he falls back into dancing. 

He starts listening to hip hop again. He starts letting his feet tap along the street in strange patterns, starts letting his arms move restlessly at his sides, starts letting his head jerk to the beat. He starts spending time with Hoseok again, catching up on all the years they've lost. They don't dance together, they don't learn moves on the sidewalk, that's for another day. A day where the fear of pain is far from their minds, where it doesn't feel like getting their hopes up for nothing, where the love of dancing outweighs everything else. For now, they gradually fall back into friendship. 

And one day, 

"Do you hear that?" Yunho says, stopping in his tracks in front of a side street. Hoseok tilts his head at Yunho, stopping a few feet ahead. 

"Hear what?" asks Hoseok. 

"I don't know, I can barely hear it," Yunho closes his eyes, tries to hear something at the edge of his mind. "It's like-" 

Oh. 

Yunho opens his eyes and looks at Hoseok breathlessly. "It's like this thrumming." 

Hoseok's sunshine smile spreads across his face. Yunho grins back at him. When the chance to dance as they used to is sitting right in front of them, there's no decision to be made. They are Jeong Yunho and Jung Hoseok. They are dancers. 

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Hoseok laughs. "Let's follow it." 

"Okay," Yunho says and Hoseok grabs his hand, pulls them into the side street. He feels on top of the world. "Let's go."

Love, whether it's for dancing or his family or his friends or his dreams, is worth the risk. Love is worth the world. And for the first time in a long time, he's more than just happy enough. 

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact: this, for a majority of its development, was saved as _just dance: gwangju boys edition_  
>  also i'm dropping this after editing/rewriting for like three straight days, mostly b/c i need to stop using this as a means of procrastinating my work
> 
> featuring mentions/cameos from Choi Yeonjun of TXT, Choi Yoojung of Weki-Meki, Park Woojin of AB6IX, Choi Yuna (Yuju) of G-Friend, Bae Yubin (Binnie) of Oh My Girl, Lee Keonhee of ONEUS. and like, all of our BTS friends, Jung Hoseok (J-Hope), Park Jimin, Jeon Jeongguk (Jungkook), and Kim Namjoon (RM). 
> 
> i hope you enjoyed reading this! you can shout at me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/theEmberAnne) or in the comments down below! i like being shouted at, or something.


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